The Marshal Is My Mate novel · Chapter 13 of 24

Chapter 13: Page Two

Lucan took the sheet out of Garrick's hand and read it himself.

The paper was stiff and cream, with the Bureau's silver scale at the top.

Name: Lucan Merrow. Age: seventeen. Rank: SS.

Under it was a physician's signature, and under that a line of red wax with a Wexcombe seal.

"It's the rarest rank there is," Lucan said. "There are four people in the empire who test SS."

"Yes."

"Why didn't anyone tell me?"

"Because my brother had it sealed," Garrick said. "Three weeks later a second test was filed in your name, and that one read C."

Lucan read the date twice.

He did not feel angry yet.

He felt his palms, which had stopped aching and now burned.

"Stop the car," he said.

"Lucan."

"Corin, stop the car."

Corin pulled in beside a dark park wall.

Lucan climbed out with the page in his fist.

Garrick opened his own door, and Lucan turned and held up a hand.

"Don't," he said. "Not one step. I need to walk."

Garrick stayed where he was, half out of the car, with his gloves off.

"Corin will follow you," he said. "At a distance."

"Fine."

Lucan walked.

He went through the park gate and along the black water of a pond.

His whole life rearranged itself in front of him, and every piece of it fit a new way.

The engagement at twenty. Perrin's storms. The six years of aching hands.

A C that he had accepted without a word, because nobody had ever given him a reason to doubt it.

He had told himself he was small. He had apologized for it.

He stopped by the water and read the page a third time.

Then he turned and walked back to the road, where the car was waiting with its lights dimmed.

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